REVIVAL IN GAOL

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18101, 17 June 1924, Page 7

REVIVAL IN GAOL

KLANSMEN PRISONERS.

SEVENTEEN MURDER TRIALS.

(BY CABLE—PRESS ASSOCIATION COPYRIGHT.) (AUSTRALIAN AND N.Z. CABLE ASSOCIATION) (Received June 16th, 7.20 p.m.) NEW YORK, June 15. A telegram from Lilly, Pennsylvania, says:—The trial successively of 17 Klansmen charged with tho murder of three persons as a result of the Ku Klux Klan riots in April has already resulted in ono acquittal. But further riots and trouble were foreshadowed when the Klan sent letters threatening death to the prosecuting attorney (Mr Weimer) if he brings another Klansman to trial. The acquitted Klansman has not been released, since he must be tried three times, and the prosecutor is determined to secure a conviction. Mr Weimer stresses the fact that 13 townspeople also fact murder trials as. a result of their part in the disastrous: warfare, and he is determined to secure impartial justice. The Stato authorities have turned a local hotel into an axsenal, troopers, cavalry, machine-guns and much ammunition being available to prevent trouble. Religious fervour has seized the Klan, a revival service being held in gaol, where those imprisoned sang hymns and professed conveision. [A renewal of the Ku Klux Kfctn anti-i-acinl campaign evidenced itself with disastrous results in the town of Lilly, Pennsylvania, early in April. The inhabitants of Lilly are chiefly Roman Catholic. The Klan had been attempting to erect flaming crossesi there, and ench time the townsfolk drove the Klansmen away. But a Klan band descended uuon the town, killing two inhabitants, "fatally wound* ing two and seriously injuring 10 others, and successfully planting burning crosses in the nrineipal streets. State troopers, who received the alarm, arrested 23 Klansmen, who were charged with riot and murder.]